Twitter starts trading at an astounding valuation of $31.3 billion

Twitter just started trading on the New York Stock Exchange at a price of $45.10 a share, which is 73% above the IPO price of $26 that was set by the company last night.

That implies an astounding valuation of $31.34 billion.

To put that in perspective, Twitter’s valuation is nearly twice electric car manufacturer Tesla ($17.14 billion) and more than streaming video service Netflix ($19.42 billion). It’s about equal to food company General Mills ($32.32 billion). And as a multiple of sales, Twitter is significantly more expensive than rival Facebook.

Our valuation figure assumes Twitter will eventually have 694.8 million shares outstanding, including stock options and restricted stock. The number could rise by 10.5 million if Twitter’s bankers choose to sell more shares today.

Based on the number of shares currently trading, Twitter’s opening market capitalization is $24.57 billion.

Here’s what Twitter’s headquarters looked like this morning when the opening bell rang (at 6:30 a.m. local time):